[00:01.120]--- lesson 1 A puma at large
[00:05.600]--- Listen to the tape then answer the question below.
[00:11.040]--- Where must the puma have come from?
[00:15.760]Pumas are large, cat-like animals which are found in America.
[00:22.120]When reports came into London Zoo that a wild puma had been spotted forty-five miles south of London, they were not taken seriously.
[00:32.400]However, as the evidence began to accumulate, experts from the Zoo felt obliged to investigate,
[00:40.600]for the descriptions given by people who claimed to have seen the puma were extraordinarily similar.
[00:48.160]The hunt for the puma began in a small village where a woman picking blackberries saw 'a large cat' only five yards away from her.
[00:58.880]It immediately ran away when she saw it, and experts confirmed that a puma will not attack a human being unless it is cornered.
[01:09.720]The search proved difficult,
[01:12.000]for the puma was often observed at one place in the morning and at another place twenty miles away in the evening.
[01:20.720]Wherever it went, it left behind it a trail of dead deer and small animals like rabbits.
[01:28.560]Paw prints were seen in a number of places and puma fur was found clinging to bushes.
[01:35.400]Several people complained of 'cat-like noises' at night and a businessman on a fishing trip saw the puma up a tree.
[01:44.640]The experts were now fully convinced that the animal was a puma, but where had it come from?
[01:52.120]As no pumas had been reported missing from any zoo in the country,
[01:56.840]this one must have been in the possession of a private collector and somehow managed to escape.
[02:04.480]The hunt went on for several weeks, but the puma was not caught.
[02:10.440]It is disturbing to think that a dangerous wild animal is still at large in the quiet countryside.